GLASSWORK IS WINDOW ON CREATIVITY PIECES COME TOGETHER FOR DELRAY BEACH MAN

A rusty-winged parrot perches on a swing that hangs from the ceiling of Ben Umschweis' Delray Beach-area home.

Through a nearby window, a small marsh wren can be seen flitting from limb to limb in a tall shade tree.

Unlike the wren, the parrot is still and silent.

It is one of many pieces made by Umschweis, a stained-glass hobbyist.

"The parrot is one of the first things I did," Umschweis said. "It's one of my simpler designs. The ones I made later are larger and more intricate."

Besides the parrot, Umschweis has made several small items, such as a fish, a butterfly and jewelry boxes, for his three granddaughters.

He also made a bathroom wastebasket and tissue holder.

"My wife saw some just like them when she was shopping in a department store in Fort Lauderdale," he said. "I copied them from the description she gave me."

His larger pieces include several pictures, which he has hung on the walls throughout his home or has given away.

Umschweis, 73, a former machine-maintenance foreman in a Massachusetts manufacturing plant, was introduced to his hobby through classes at his community clubhouse four years ago.

He has given only one of his pieces a name. He calls it Scrap Glass. It is a "crazy quilt" of glass fragments, of mixed sizes and colors, that were left over from his other pieces.

His workshop area is a countertop mounted over second-hand kitchen cabinets on the front porch of his villa, although he sometimes works at a small table in the corner of his den.

"If I'd only known I was going to take up this hobby," Umschweis said, "I'd have bought a home with a garage."

Umschweis usually buys the patterns and glass for his designs from an area hobby shop, he said. He said the cost of a piece of glass depended on its texture and color.

"Red glass is one of the most expensive," he said. "They tell me that's because they have to use gold to get the red color."

In detailing the steps of making one of his pieces, Umschweis said he first chose the pattern and types and colors of glass he would use.

Next, he cuts out the individual pieces of the pattern and places them over the different pieces of glass, which he cuts with a special glass-cutting tool.

"It's not hard work," Umschweis said. "But you can't be too rough with it -- after all, it's glass. I have large hands, but I go easy with it."

The cutting tool must be kept lubricated to ensure its sharpness, he said. So, if it is not a self-lubricating tool, it must be dipped in kerosene or mineral spirits each time it is used to make a cut.

As the pieces are cut out, he fits them together on another, identical pattern, which is spread on a board. If there are any rough edges, he smooths them with an electric grinder.

Next, he wraps copper foil around the edges of the pieces and, after butting the pieces together, solders along the exposed foil with a soldering iron.

Often, he gives the soldering a bronzed effect by rubbing it with a patina solution.

Umschweis said he saves as much as 60 percent on the cost of his frames by making them from 10-foot strips of gold or silver molding material.

His latest piece is a 2 1/2-by-4 foot picture of a man dressed in a tuxedo, playing a grand piano on a checker-patterned floor. A woman is standing beside the piano, wearing a long orange dress and a lavender-feathered headpiece. Some potted plants and a tall, arched window provide the background.

The picture is a gift for his daughter, who plans to hang it in the library of the home she and her husband are building in New Jersey.

Although he worked at it intermittently, he completed it in only three weeks.

"My wife always tells me, 'Slow down,' " Umschweis said. " 'You don't have to finish it all in one day.' But I get so engrossed. I can't wait to see things completed."